O.C. Water Shortage Worst Since 1960s

Not since the early 1960s has Orange County experienced such water shortages as it has this summer.

Concentrated in the rapidly growing South County, the shortages have resulted in requests to contractors and landscapers to curtail their water use in some areas. A “water cop” was even hired by one district to patrol for violators.

Officials at the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles--which imports water from Northern California and the Colorado River for distribution across the Southland--called the South County water situation the most critical in the region.

Metropolitan spokesman Bob Gomperz said Thursday that all of Southern California could face shortages next summer because of a desert flash flood last week that choked the Los Angeles Aqueduct with debris, closing the vital water tributary.

‘Mandatory Conservation’

Gomperz said closure of the aqueduct, which channels water from the Eastern Sierra to the city of Los Angeles, has forced the city to dip into auxiliary Metropolitan supplies set aside for next summer.

If California experiences a fourth straight year of drought in 1990, Metropolitan may not have enough water to supply its service area of 14 million people that stretches from Ventura to San Diego. “We would be talking about some mandatory conservation steps,” Gomperz said.

San Clemente, hardest hit in the Orange County water crisis, this month moved to the brink of ordering mandatory water rationing by its 40,000 residents after the level of the Tri-Cities Reservoir plummeted dangerously low during the peak water-use months of July and August.

Although the reservoir leveled off Tuesday, giving local water officials temporary relief, some South County water districts are still bracing for possible shortages that may arise from any prolonged hot spell during the remainder of summer.

“I wish it would rain,” said Ray Woodside, general manager of the beleaguered Tri-Cities Municipal Water District in San Clemente.

Woodside and other officials said the water emergency shows no sign of affecting residential drinking and washing supplies. Before that would happen, Woodside said, the biggest single use of water--for grading and landscaping--would be halted.

The emergency also does not affect the northern and central portions of the county, which, unlike the South County, have ample stockpiles of ground water to augment imported water. The Orange County Water District, custodian of an immense underground lake beneath the northern part of the county, dispenses enough ground water to meet a third of the county’s water needs.

Officials say that for the Southern California region as a whole there is, in fact, plenty of water for everybody--although, they add, that may not always be the case if growth outstrips available supplies.

But the South County has been unable to draw enough to meet its full needs because of limited pumping ability and pipeline capacity in some harder-to-reach areas, said John Foley, general manager of the Moulton-Niguel Water District in Laguna Niguel.

As a result, the problems in the South County have plunged the county into its most serious water emergency since the early 1960s, said Lynn Aufdenkamp, a board member of the Metropolitan Water District who has represented the South County on the district for 32 years.

In the past several weeks, individual districts have moved to avert an immediate crisis. In the long term, several new pipelines are under construction which will, by 1993, provide enough water to meet the growing demands of the South County, officials said.

The summer water crunch has been particularly hard-felt in these water districts:

Tri-Cities Municipal Water District, which serves San Clemente as well as the Capistrano Beach part of Dana Point. Officials watched with growing alarm as their Tri-Cities Reservoir, with a capacity of 48 million gallons, dipped to 18 million gallons. The district has asked contractors and irrigators to curtail water use by as much as 50%. The San Clemente City Council is scheduled to consider a water-rationing plan on Sept. 6 if the plea for cutbacks fails.

Moulton-Niguel Water District, which serves about 100,000 people in Laguna Niguel and parts of Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills. Three weeks ago the district asked homeowner associations, contractors and irrigators to restrict watering to every other day after water demand exceeded the district’s ability to pump the water into hard-to-reach hilltop subdivisions. A “water cop” was also hired to patrol for compliance.

Moulton-Niguel’s water shortage abated when the district put in a new pump station a few days ago to aid in lifting water to the hilltop subdivisions, Foley said. The district also uses pumps to lift water into 30 steel tanks. After calling contractors, landscapers and homeowner associations, Moulton-Niguel Water District officials say, they received widespread compliance to every-other-day watering.

“The problem (of shortages) is now behind us,” Foley said.

Capistrano Valley Water District, which serves the 25,000 residents of San Juan Capistrano. The district has been advising its customers to conserve since recent hot weather forced demand so high that contractors and landscapers were placed on alert for cutbacks. “We are in a situation of concern,” said Ray Auerbach, general manager of the Capistrano Valley Water District.

Attributable to Growth

Auerbach added that the district hopes to relieve any worry over immediate water shortages by restoring to operation two old wells that were closed because the water was unfit to drink. The water will be used for irrigation and landscaping purposes. The district required two developers to participate in the well restoration project.

The water shortages in the South County are directly attributable to the region’s stunning growth of the past decade. Foley, for example, said he has watched his Moulton-Niguel Water District explode from a population base of 40,000 to 100,000 during that time. And with an additional 80,000 people expected to move into the district as the area continues to develop, Foley said the demand for water will only increase.

Recognizing the need for more water distribution facilities in the South County, the Municipal Water District of Orange County--which supplies imported water to most of the county--has launched two projects heralded as solutions.

One is construction of a pipeline parallel to the existing 27-mile Allen-McColloch Pipeline, which channels water from a Metropolitan Water District treatment plant in Yorba Linda into southeastern Orange County. The project, estimated to cost $44 million, is under construction and due to be completed by 1993.

The second project, the South County Pipeline, will convey water from the terminus of the Allen-McColloch Pipeline 20 miles south to San Clemente. That project, which is to cost around $90 million, is scheduled for completion by 1991. Construction is under way.

Woodside, of the Tri-Cities Municipal Water District, said completion of the South County Pipeline would solve San Clemente’s current problem: channeling incoming water supplies through a single pipeline. The project would provide a second.

An even more ambitious project to help the South County has been put in the works by the Metropolitan Water District. Metropolitan plans to build a new, 20-mile pipeline between its storage reservoir at Lake Mathews and the South County--by tunneling beneath the Santa Ana Mountains. That project, which is estimated to cost $400 million, is targeted for completion by the year 2000. A preliminary environmental impact report is being prepared for the proposal.

South County districts are also pushing for long-range solutions. Both the Moulton-Niguel and Santa Margarita water districts are reclaiming thousands of gallons of treated sewage water for irrigation and landscaping. The water, which is non-drinkable, is being used on golf courses, street medians and large subdivision slopes, Foley said.

In addition, Foley said, the two districts are working together to store the reclaimed water for use in times of emergency, such as this summer. Moulton-Niguel is also building a joint reclamation reservoir with the South Coast Water District in Dana Point.

Throughout Orange County, the Municipal Water District is conducting an aggressive public education campaign, giving tips to homeowners on conserving water. Fixing leaks in faucets and toilets, for instance, can save hundreds of gallons of water per day. The countywide education campaign, targeted in schools, is reaching about 130,000 students per year.

But because home water use accounts for only about a third of the area’s consumption, the South County districts are focusing on the biggest water users: contractors watering down construction sites for grading purposes and landscapers using automatic sprinklers to keep subdivision slopes green.

Despite this summer’s emergencies in the South County--and the specter of a regionwide emergency next year--Mary Jane Forster, a lobbyist for the Municipal Water District of Orange County, expressed the popular belief among local water officials that Southern California will be spared any serious water shortages.

WATER CONSERVATION TIPS

BATHROOM Stop using your toilet as an ashtray or wastebasket. Take shorter showers. Limit your showers to the time it takes to soap up, wash down, and rinse off. Turn off the water while brushing your teeth and shaving. Check faucets and pipes for leaks. KITCHEN and LAUNDRY Use your automatic dishwasher only for full loads. Use your automatic washing machine only for full loads. Don’t let the faucet run while you clean vegetables. Instead, rinse them in a sink filled with clean water. OUTSIDE Don’t water the gutter. Position your sprinklers so that the water lands on your lawn or garden, not on concrete or other paved areas. Also, avoid watering on windy days. Don’t run the hose while washing your car. Soap down your car from a pail of soapy water. Use a hose only to rinse it off. Tell your children not to play with the hose and sprinklers. Source: Metropolitan Water District

TASTE TESTS--For now, water is still running from Orange County taps. How does it taste? Depends on where you live. Orange County Life.